After three weeks in Angola I arrived back at Heathrow on Monday afternoon 18 hours after leaving Luanda. The African experience was certainly one that I am glad to have to have done.
I arrived back at Portman Road late on Monday and immediately sought out my team. They were busy preparing the pitch for Tuesdays FA youth cup game against Fulham. A slight frost was almost out of the pitch and the final preparation was left to the match day. Fortunately the pitch had been rolled out following the last game and most of the small damage had been re instated. The youth cup has become a sore subject for me in recent years. I think the competition is great and offers the young pros a chance to play in the country’s top stadiums. At least that’s how it is supposed to be. In recent seasons many of the big clubs have been given permission to play the early rounds away from their main stadium only playing at home from the quarter final the idea being to protect the pitches during the winter. The quarter finals don’t take place till March. In the last round we played Arsenal at Barnets Underhill stadium. No disrespect to Barnet the pitch and facilities were superb for the time of year but our kids should have played at the Emirates. Three out of the last four seasons we have played a youth cup tie at home days ahead of an important first team game. Tuesday night in Ipswich was wet and cold with Heavy rain falling throughout the game. Most grounds men will tell you that the damage from a kid’s game is much worse than the damage from a first team game. This is because the kids tend to slide in more often. We duly picked up quite a bit of damage. It will repair but the pitch won’t be in its usual tip top condition for Saturday’s home game. Clubs like ours enter into the youth cup in good faith accepting we will have to play games in and around the first team schedule at a difficult time of the season if drawn at home. This can be problematic and something I am trying to change. I am in favour of the youth cup taking a winter break of two months through January and February. This would allow clubs to reduce the usage during the worst period of the year. We also play the majority of our reserve games there so January and February can be quite congested. Such a break should find favour with most clubs and should allow then to play the games at home and not a third party stadium. It would put us on a level playing field.
Our training pitches have like most training grounds taken a real hammering over January. Having walked the pitches in the week I was happy that they were still in reasonable shape. There were signs of damage and the pitches that were cleared during the big freeze will need to be rested for several weeks. It is at times like this we are fortunate to have the 11 pitches. Several pitches had succumbed to Fussarium. This had crept in under the snow. It has been treated and on Thursday the pitches were fed with Scotts Invigorator fertiliser. The 4:0:8 analyses is ideal for the time of year to give the pitches a boost. The Iron content in the fertiliser also helps to lift the colour. After Saturdays game we have a break of just over two weeks in the stadium. It is unusual for us to have such a break at this time of the year but we are out of the cup and have a run of away games in the league. We will use the time to tidy the pitch up and give it a well earned rest.
